My Father The Dog
by Akktri
Summary: Shermann tells the story of life as the biological offspring of Peabody. Loosely inspired by the Peabody and Shermann film.
1. Chapter 1: Back to School

My eyes came into focus as a blue bag landed on the kitchen table with a soft thump.

I groggily stared at the gold medal on the logo for a minute before a pair of white hands slid open the seal, pouring the contents of the bag into two cereal bowls, one marked ARTHUR, the other SHERMAN.

I frowned as the SHERMAN bowl rolled in front of me.

IntelliMeal. Healthiest kibble ever made. My father's patented contribution to the pet food industry.

Dad says that taste has very little to do with survival or health, that it has no real meaning, if something is nutritious and fills you up. It's sufficient, no matter what it tastes like.

Although I somewhat agree, I have tried numerous strategies to make the kibble not taste like...you get the idea.

I tried sweet coatings once, sugar, honey, you name it, but it didn't help. For awhile, I went through a "grits" phase, coating the stuff with butter and bacon bits and cheese, but even that didn't taste wonderful.

One time I even tried one of dad's inventions, a "taste spoon" that uses nerve induction to trick the tongue into feeling like it's touching delicious food, but that only made everything I ate taste like Italian salad dressing, even hours after I put the spoon away. We're still working on that one.

I absently stared at a monitor displaying a recording of _Cosmos_.

The kitchen looked like something from a science fiction movie. Ultramodern, furnished with stainless steel furniture and pristine looking angular cut SimulWood, large computer monitors on every wall displaying a steady stream of commercial free educational material.

The table looked like a wooden version of the obelisk from _2001_, a massive slab of simulated tree, hearkening back to a time in which trees actually existed.

A low hum in the background told me he was also mixing Brain Boosters, a special concoction of natural and chemical ingredients scientifically designed to optimize cognitive functions.

It tasted just as bad as the dog chow.

I poked my spoon into the bowl, staring up at the same hairy face I've stared at every morning since I was born. The face of an all white beagle with round black framed glasses perched on its muzzle.

At four feet, he has to use a special chair just to see over the table. I'm almost two feet taller. Dad says I take after mom in that area.

As I gazed at him, he seemed to stare back at me like I were _Tylenchulus Semipenetans_ under a microscope.

He poured my shake and slid it over to me.

My religious studies have taught me to be thankful for any form of sustenance, no matter how bad tasting. Therefore, before I ate, I folded my hands and bowed my head, which caused a frown to appear on father's muzzle.

"I fail to understand why you still maintain this irrational practice," I heard father saying. "Even if we overlook the obvious unanswerable philosophical conundrums and logical fallacies that are the bane of every religion's existence, you're not actually human. Even if we were erroneously presupposing that the Judeo-Christian God exists, why would he even want to listen to you?"

I swallowed. He was right about one thing. I'm half human. My dad's a dog, and my mom was a human. Actually, I'm three quarters human because dad is genetically modified.

No, I wasn't made in a lab.

You see, in 2950, in the wake of the nationwide legalization of gay marriage in 2019 and the Child-Adult Marriage Amendment in 2021, and the relaxation of statutory laws, the Supreme Court unanimously approved the so-called "Animal Husbandry Act."

Sadly, mom died during childbirth. I sometimes think he resents me for that.

Mom was a Unitarian. At one time in dad's life, he actually joined her in this sect. This is not to say he believed in God, it just means you can join them without believing in anything. If you study Unitarianism at all, you'd understand.

Why would God listen to me, a nonhuman abomination? The thought has often kept me awake at night.

I shook my head. "My existence is a miracle. The fact that we live in such lavish quarters is a blessing from God. I'm lucky to have food and eat it, and have a comfortable place to sleep. If He has enough regard for me to do all these things, He should be pleased to receive my thanks."

Dad rolled his eyes. "Son, the only reason we're living so comfortably is due to hard work, innovation, and fortuitous chance events."

"I am giving thanks for those chance events," I replied. And I said grace over my dog food.

Dad paid this no heed, noisily chomping kibble as I mouthed the words. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had buried his face into the bowl like a ...okay, so that was a cheap shot.

When I raised my head, father spoke. "Yeast strain A-32 is showing some promise, but I think we need to run a few more tests."

I sighed. "Must we talk shop at the table?"

He gave me an apologetic smile. "You're absolutely right. It's psychologically healthy to set work aside and let the unconscious assemble the pieces."

He took a deep breath. "So, _what do_ you wish to speak about?"

I sighed. "I don't know."

The problem is, I'm seventeen and I'm supposed to go back to high school.

These aren't mere jitters. I mean, that's part of it, but the real problem is that I can never seem to fit in.

"Son," he said. "I know you can easily test out and go to college, but I have concern for your psychological well being."

I uttered a growl worthy of my dad. "Oh. And it helps my psychological well being so much when people laugh at me and call me a freak."

"Son, the truest mark of being well balanced is what one does in the face of adversity, and how one ascends above it. If I isolate you from the world and send you tot he ivory tower of the university, you will be woefully unprepared for the unfortunate chance conditions that may force you into direct contact with the common man. Does not that book you always study tell you something similar?"

He meant the Greek New Testament, the one without the annoying English translation. I read a passage from it every day.

I sighed. "In not so many words."

"Furthermore, I would like to reiterate my point about networking. Without the right connections, all the knowledge in the universe won't help you."

I chomped my dog food in sullen silence.

At last I said, "Why can't I go to Belber High?"

My dad harrumphed in response. "That is not a high school. That is a movie theater/video arcade. I've reviewed the course curricula. One hundred percent of it is on a hard drive, prepackaged and delivered electronically across the country like Netflix. The only thing you learn how to do there is drink Coke, use protection during intercourse, some basic math functions and how to be a sycophant. You can do better."

It was hard to tell if he were exaggerating or not. I just shook my head and slurped my Brain Booster.

"If you want to get your entire education on film, you might as well stay home."

He pointed at a digital model of carbon on a monitor. "At least my ads are informative."

I sighed. My life had been home schooling, even when I had a school to attend, I had my dad for a tutor.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't like Central."

"How can you not like it if you've never been there?"

"We took the tour, remember?"

He sighed. "It's not the uniform, is it? You wore one just like it to Degeneres Academy. I even made you a belt to tuck in your tail."

My "uniform" had a skirt. There are commandments against men wearing women's clothing, but I'm part dog and the Romans wore a kind of skirt, I suppose. I had put up with that kind of thing for an entire month.

This isn't merely the product of one perverted school administration. Five to ten years ago, the president enacted the Anti Bullying and Gender Orientation Acceptance Bill, one of the signers being the now deceased senator Ellen Degeneres.

"That's not the problem," I said.

I forced more kibble into my stomach.

"Son, we can't stop turning schools down. You got kicked out of Degeneres for carrying a bible into class, you got ejected from St. Stephens for suggesting that the earth was not created in literally seven days and that he created man out of the primordial soup, and then we have all this fighting. Ironic, considering your current religious obsession.

"We have few options left, other than move out of state. New York has excellent schools, but I doubt you wish to brave Sharia country for the opportunity."

"No," I said. "Your suggestion is illogical. They would likely stone us both to death."

"This is only to emphasize by means of exaggeration how few options we have left open to us."

I just silently emptied my bowl.

"You never went to school," I said.

"I know. I only wish for you to be exposed to the opportunities I have never been fortunate enough to have."

I uttered a soft growl of annoyance.

"As stated previously, I have researched Central in great detail and its statistics are highly favorable. A number of influential individuals in the community have arisen from this humble establishment.

"Doctors, lawyers, business professionals, civic and government officials...it's possible your association with these students will prove crucial to your success in the world. Plus, it has a very promising male to female student ratio..."

I was already scared of the place. The mention of girls made my stomach discomfort even worse.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not Preference A (people don't say `gay' or `homosexual' anymore without getting fined). I like women. They just have problems with me.

During my short stay at Martin Luther King school, a girl pretended to love me, but she wouldn't go out on dates or stand near me when others were looking.

On another occasion, at a different school, a girl dumped me the moment she saw me in sandals.

At Degeneres, the girl dumped me because I left my tail hanging outside my uniform.

Each rejection hurt. Those were wounds that stayed with me and wouldn't go away. Going back to school meant opening those wounds afresh, possibly adding to them.

Dad must have noticed my sad expression, for then he said, "Love is not easy, son. I have faced many painful rejections before encountering your mother. And..."

He stared at the table, falling silent. I could guess what had quieted him.

Mom was a rare woman. Being closer in resemblance to a dog than me, and remembering the problems associated with my birth, he had no hope for another to come along. Instead, he gave up on romance all together, putting all his hopes in me, living vicariously through me.

"You'd better get dressed for school," he muttered.

Our house is a large futuristic cube, situated on the upper level of a vast matrix of housing cubes we call St. Louis.

No windows, just video screens. There's nothing to see outside but ugly square buildings under a huge nicotine colored cloud.

The interior is vaguely Mondrian inspired, a square, angular motif of colored blocks containing some scientific image or symbols or another. My room had a red carpet, a bookcase with square shelves arranged in random sizes, one holding a bright blue fish tank, another holding a red model of Jupiter. My bed was a red and blue block, but it was comfortable.

My bathroom was also done in color blocks, the images taking on a decidedly aquatic theme.

I stripped, staring at my naked form in a mirror patterned with small chemical formulas for mirror molecules, wondering what sort of woman would be attracted to what I saw before me.

Part human, part dog.

Dad said, as a fetus, he had altered my genetic code to make me look more human.

Other than me unusually pronounced jowls and a slightly canine shape to my nose, my face and head looked completely human.

I lack my dad's muzzle, and the only time you can tell my ears are canine is when something surprises me and they display a little too much mobility.

I had plastic surgery when I was little. They used to be floppier. I used to be able to untuck them and shake them out , but now they were just normal ears.

Of course, every night I have to shave or end up with an old man's mustache and beard.

I'm basically normal from neck to waist. My neck's a little thick, and the skin is unusually tough there, but that's more of a blessing than a curse.

Below the waist, well, that's when things get strange.

I have a tail, but it's a hairless stick. Like dad's, it works, and it wags when I'm happy, but it's mostly just a nuisance. The only reason why nobody removed it was due to fears about spinal damage and my silly childhood tantrums about the subject.

Also, while I don't have a full fur coat, I do have an odd diamond shaped patch of fuzz surrounding my tail, and broad swath of white fur stretching from my abdomen to a flat part between my legs, covering most of my, ahem, _private areas_. Below that, a pair of mismatched furry blobs surround half of each of my ankles.

My feet are more like claws, hence the reason why I never wear sandals. Sneakers hide the claws, good socks hide the patches.

I used to have a pair of furry "wings" on my back, but father had the follicles surgically removed.

I climbed in the shower, using a voice activated computer to sort telescope images on a screen built into my shower door.

I dried off in a massive blower, shaking off the excess moisture like a canine.

I stepped out and opened my closet, staring at my uniform with a frown.

It was charcoal gray framed with pink stripes. The upper portion resembled a polo, but it had puff sleeves, and it was attached to a ruffled skirt.

Next to this, I had the required nylons and a pair of shiny black shoes, thankfully ones with shorter, male appropriate heels.

I slid my tail through a narrow sort of belt designed to hide it from view, buckling it around my stomach before pulling the underwear and stockings on.

After dressing like this for an entire semester, a person either joins the other team or gets secure in their masculinity really quick.

Me, I just want a girl that accepts me, skirt, tail and all.

I got my backpack ready, then stepped into the lab to help father with his yeast project.

The reason why we have an upper cube and food and luxury is largely due to his discovery of the AIDS vaccine. Although I'm glad that our cure helps innocent people who just happened to get infected by a dirty needle or something, it's opened the door to rampant prostitution, astronomical increases in abortions, and, more recently, super AIDS. I guess when the threat of AIDS goes away, people get a lot bolder.

We thought we were going to get the Nobel Peace Prize, but it instead went to Vice President Cyrus, who negotiated a cease fire between the New England Al Qaeda and the forty states of America. You don't want to know how she did it, you really don't.

Dad moved on to other projects. In attempts to cure cancer, or possibly Super AIDS, he stumbled upon a new type of beer, so now we're studying yeast.

"Excuse me, miss," father said with a wry smile. "Would you mind assisting me with these cultures?"

Rolling my eyes, I helped dad with some tests and cataloging a few strains.

Dad's lab was stocked with the best equipment required for use in fields of chemistry, electronics, criminal forensics, pathology and biology. The arrangement was ideal for a scientist, who, in the grips of mania, decides to put aside experiments on an alternative fuel source to start work on an advanced deep space telescope, a cell phone for dolphins, or maybe a robot playmate for his son.

I stared at the shiny four legged robot sitting on an electrostatic work station. I could still see wires hanging out, but the synthetic creature appeared to be coming along nicely, the graven image of a second son he would never have.

Its ears were pointy horns, fashioned from the handles of arcade machine light guns. For eyes it had a curving red visor. A laser knife barrel had formed its nose. Dad hadn't figured out how to make the machine levitate yet, and its power supply was questionable, but he'd already named it, welding its designation on the side of its belly. K-9.

"Dad," I said. "You really need to go outside more often."

He just shook his head. "What, and breathe the smog?"

A thousand years had passed and we're still burning fossil fuels. Still no flying cars.

While electric hybrids had had their heyday in 3012, we quickly realized that coal is just as limited as oil, and smaller payments at the pump just meant bigger electric bills, and that we can't use the crop oils without draining the nation's food supplies.

By the time regulation agencies cracked down on petroleum cars, we could barely see the sky through the fog.

When time came for me to leave, we put on our breathing masks, marching out to the vehicle.

Due to the high concentration of carbon monoxide in the air, nobody goes anywhere without a personal air filtration system (PAFS). It's sad, but some people are too poor to afford them, living with the associated health problems. Others touchingly share a communal mask, or stay in closed buildings with air purification equipment.

Our car didn't fly, but it could float. A laser propulsion based hovercraft powered by garbage, with a streamlined egg-like body, sleek and aerodynamic enough for minimal wind resistance.

As dad poured the contents of a nearby barrel into the back hatch, I opened a wing-like door on the side, tucking in my skirt as I climbed in the passenger seat.

The car is still in beta. There are control issues. The cabin smells funny, and the engine unexpectedly shuts down at odd times, sending the car crashing to the ground, walls or other vehicles.

On this particular morning, we got within three blocks of the school before running aground, ironically nose first into a trash can.

"Have a good day at school, son," he said as he got out to fix the engine. "I should have this malfunction corrected by the time you get out."

I had removed my mask for the ride, but now, as I prepared to walk, I put it back on, shouldering my bag. "See you after school," I called, my girly shoes clicking on the pavement as I marched up the block.

The streets are virtually identical everywhere you go, differentiated only by street signs, the occasional slight landmark and the quirks of the various inhabitants, such as graffiti, scatterings of toys or the rather unwise practice of hanging laundry. Mostly, though, it was just a disorganized arrangement of massive metal structures with the appearance of corroded file cabinets, crisscrossed with wires, pipes and air filtration systems.

After marching ahead a few yards, I at last saw the school, an immense gray cube with a brick courtyard and a fountain up front gushing unnaturally blue water.

A crowd of students milled through the courtyard as they disembarked from crusty old hydrogen powered buses or carbon monoxide belching junk heaps. I pushed my way through the mob, glancing hopefully at the passing female faces.

As I neared the entrance, someone in the mob slammed their body into me, and I pitched backwards into the Tidy Bowl fountain.

I pulled myself out, dripping and smelling of chemicals.

I heard someone laugh.

Looking up, I saw that it was a fat faced kid with a crew cut. He wore a uniform just like mine.

So much for the anti-bullying law, I thought.

With a chuckle, the thug blew me a kiss and walked away.


	2. Chapter 2: The New Kid

A redhead girl in the standard uniform leaned over the fountain. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I groaned. "Just a little wet."

"Need a hand?"

With a nod, I took her offered hand and pulled myself out.

I was damp, dripping, and my clothes were stained blue. Damp socks, damp nylons, damp everything. I also smelled faintly of sewage. The fountain, after all, was made only for looks.

My book bag was soaked. Although we had computerized notebooks and such, a few of my classes, like math and Spanish, actually required the use of restored used materials and recycled paper, all of which the thug ruined by shoving me into the fountain. I guessed I would have to use funny smelling books and wrinkled paper for the rest of the semester.

"I'm really sorry that happened to you. Brett is a real jerk." she said.

I started to shake my body dry, but stopped myself when I realized it wouldn't earn me any favors.

"You don't have a towel, do you?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Maybe you can use a hand drier in the restroom."

She offered her hand. "Jessica."

I shook it. "Sherman."

The bell rang, and everyone scampered into the gray cube.

"I should go," she smiled. "Maybe we'll meet up later."

I nodded. "Sure."

Inside the door, there lay a tunnel lined with `carbon scrubbers,' machinery that sucked out the outside air, filtering it through various inefficient processes. The school logo, a hawk (they were now an endangered species) was painted on the floor.

I dripped water on it, and as I did, I noticed something odd in the reflection.

Looking up, I saw a new addition to the decor: A tall blue wooden box with the words `Police Call Box' written on the top.

The box had little windows with glowing lights behind them. As I stood staring at the object, I found myself being tackled painfully against a row of lockers.

The school has cameras everywhere, both for protection of school property and for `anti bullying' measures. Unfortunately, there have been successful Supreme Court cases that imply that you are `bullying' a homosexual if you even attempt to push them away when they're making advances on you.

This is why I didn't fight back.

The guy pressed himself close to me, grabbing my chin.

He brought his face up to mine, but then, as he sniffed me, he drew back.

"You're disgusting. Get your smelly ass washed up."

He then tugged playfully with my skirt, winked and walked away, laughing.

I thought about leaving the fountain slime on my body for protection, but then I thought about how difficult it would make it for me to get along with others at the school, so I wandered down the hallway in search of a bathroom, preferably one with a shower.

I bumped into the girl, knocking her books and tablet computer to the floor.

"Shit!" I cried. "I'm sorry!"

She picked up the tablet and glanced at it. "It's okay. It's not broken."

I sighed in relief.

As I handed the books to her, it was only then that I remembered I'd fallen in the fountain.

"I'm so sorry," I blurted. "I'm probably making everything all smelly."

She smiled. "It's not your fault. Brett doesn't know how to treat people."

"Do you know where the showers are?"

She pointed down the hallway, giving me the directions. "Some first day at school, huh?"

"Yeah," I muttered. "And to top it off, I'm going to be late for class."

For a moment, I just gazed at her, admiring her silky red hair, her hazel eyes, her other attributes...

She giggled. "You're going to be even later if you keep standing around and staring at me."

I reddened. "I'm sorry. I..."

"You don't need to explain," she grinned.

She gave me a wink and pranced away.

It's true what they say about a dog's heart being connected to his tail. Mine was joyfully trying to escape my dress.

The showers were next to the school gym. They had that standard communal setup, basically a cluster of concrete posts with spray nozzles where everyone of the same sex showers next to everyone else, drying off and getting dressed together on the benches nearby. This semester was going to be hell.

At the moment, the room was deserted., so I typed a sequence of buttons on one of the posts and showered with my clothes on.

The water wasn't as well filtered as the stuff at home, so it smelled strongly of chlorine and antibacterial cleaning solutions. Anything was better than sewage, I thought.

I gave myself a quick rinse, then shook myself off like my father, muscles flexing independently to fling the maximum amount of moisture from my body in a rapid motion.

It works better when you're naked. My clothes were still damp, and shaking didn't help matters that much.

Hearing an automatic drier switching on, I whirled and found myself staring at the bully.

He pushed a button on a machine, grinning as waves of heated air blasted him from head to foot, skirt blowing around his legs. "Might be easier than shaking yourself dry!"

I marched up to a machine a considerable distance away from him, drying myself off.

The bully came closer, propping one foot up on a nearby bench.

"What's the matter, didn't bring a change of clothes?"

I shook my head.

"You know, I've got a spare uniform..." he offered.

I shuddered. "No way."

"It's clean," he persisted. "Hasn't been worn yet."

"No thanks. I don't want to owe you any favors."

Mostly dry now, I stepped over a bench, marching through a row of lockers, away from the creep.

Brett suddenly grabbed me, shoving me into an aluminum locker door.

I expected him to beat me. In fact, I would have preferred it if he had.

Instead, he kisses me, grabbing me around the waist as one hand slides up the back of my skirt.

He suddenly pulled away. "What the hell is that poking out of your back?"

I refused to answer.

"You some kind of mutant or something?"

I didn't feel particularly inclined to answer that either.

He forcefully yanked my tail out, staring at it, but I whipped it out of his hands.

"Damn!" he laughed. "You're some kind of dog boy!"

I wasn't going to stay and listen to any more of this.

I had planned to attempt drying the books, but it wasn't a good time for that, so I just grabbed my bag and hurried to the door.

"Arf arf, dog boy! Don't catch any fleas! Be a good doggy and I'll give you a nice flea collar. We'll go for a walk!" And he blew me a kiss.

I hurried out to the hallway, quickly stuffing my tail back into its harness.

It was then that I noticed Jessica standing in my path.

"Is that real?" she asked. "The tail?"

I swallowed hard. "Maybe?"


	3. Chapter 3: Section 39

Great, I thought. Soon the whole school is going to know about my tail.

"Maybe?" she repeated. "Is it real or isn't it?"

My cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

"It's cute. Why do you hide it?"

I blushed even deeper. "Most people think I'm a freak. They call me Dog Boy and get pretty insulting about it."

I paused. "Why are you here? Aren't you missing class?"

She smiled. "We both have Ms. Johnson's first hour class. You didn't answer when she was calling roll, and when I told her what you were doing, she thought you got lost and sent me to come find you."

Then, in a sing-songy tone, she added, "Now I'm glad I did!"

My tail was wiggling furiously, struggling to break free and express its uncontained joy. I felt compelled to hug her or kiss her, or take her hand, but we just met, and I didn't want to be like Brett, so I just smiled and said she was a nice person.

I followed her back to my first hour class.

It turned out I didn't miss much. Mrs. Johnson was the lazy sort that used a lot of prepackaged modules and movies.

They were watching _The Hunger Games_.

Yes, I know it's a quote-unquote `classic film', since it was produced decades ago, but in my personal opinion, it's not educational, and you'd be much better off studying Orwell's _1984_, or its other inspiration, _The Running Man_. But this was where the education system was going these days.

Having nothing to stimulate my brain, I stared at my surroundings. The walls were decorated with framed movie posters for ancient films such as _A Hundred Years a Slave_, _V for Vendetta_ and _Harry Potter_. You know, `classic literature.' A wall monitor displayed school announcements and ads for Coke, Victoria's Secret, video games and various food products. Another one cycled through various posters of dubious educational significance.

I glanced at Jessica. She smirked, rolling her eyes at the screen.

Neither one of us cared much for the old movie, and all those cheap scenes of people running around in the woods didn't sustain our attention.

I gave her a smile, my tail wiggling, trying to get out.

She must have noticed this, for she wagged her index finger and shrugged, pantomiming, "Is it wagging now?"

Blushing, I gave her a nod, and she covered her mouth to hide a giggle.

She pulled out her tablet computer, activating it in Theater Lighting Mode to avoid detection. Mine was already out, so she pointed hers at it, typing a message.

I dimmed my screen and looked at what she sent.

_Do u have a girlfriend?_

I texted no.

_U wanna go out sometime?_

Instead of texting, I smiled and nodded.

Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Mister..._Peabody_, is it?" a woman's voice said.

This, presumably, was Ms. Johnson. A grumpy looking sixty year old with a creased face, severe haircut, and retro hornrimmed glasses.

I swallowed and nodded to her.

"Have you been familiarized with the code of conduct?"

"Uh, no ma'am," I said. "But don't worry. I won't text in class anymore." I dropped the computer into my bag.

The hand didn't move.

"I was referring to your Code 39 violation."

"Code 39?" I stammered. "What's that?"

The principal's office was rather luxurious. The large shiny wooden desk was impressive, even for SimulWood. The big potted fern was a fake, but FlowFlex plastics made it pretty convincing. One wall held a trophy case, featuring several strange looking awards I couldn't identify. A tall wooden cabinet stood in one corner, one of those hybridized metal SimulWoods, to keep people from sawing in and taking things.

Their American flag still had fifty two stars on it, despite the loss of New York and other states. That flag actually used to mean something.

On the wall behind the desk, there hung a framed painting of the senator responsible for the school. It seemed they valued her clumsily phrased philosophies enough to paint the words in a neat border along all four walls.

The principal's computer equipment was a little outdated, but it still looked functional enough to run the school, a tablet, a razor thin laptop, and a black data cube.

The principal itself was a person of indeterminate gender. The figure was slender, the features delicate. There was no facial hair, and the face looked feminine, but it could easily have been a young man. Earrings, butch haircut, no makeup or lipstick. The voice it used when it spoke on the phone could have been due to hormone treatments.

A plaque on the desk said the office was owned by a Bobbi Perez, which really didn't indicate what sex the principal was. Not every man spelled it Bobby these days.

The way Jessica and I were brought before the principal, you would have thought we'd been fighting each other. They sat us down in chairs opposite one another, and our parents were holoconferenced in. Awkward.

Jessica's parents looked nice enough people, even if they were both women. Astronauts, by the look of them, one sporting a pageboy cut, another a butch, both clad in NASA jumpsuits.

My dad, as usual, used artfully spliced together footage of old movie star Jeff Goldblum to conceal our secret. The principal already knew from our tour, but few others did.

"First of all," the principal said to our parents. "Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to conference with us today."

"What's this about?" said one of the women.

"This regards a Section 39 violation," the principal said, and our parents were sent something on their computers that I couldn't see.

The women gasped in shock, but dad/A.K.A. Jeff, only laughed.

"What's a Section 39?" I asked.

She showed me my text messages from Jessica. "These messages could possibly be construed as sexual harassment."

Dad was having a giggle fit, and he kept trying to hide it. His disguise wiggled like it were having convulsions.

"I wasn't harassed at all," I protested. "In fact, it made me happy."

The principal looked disgusted. Jessica's mothers muttered to one another in alarm.

The principal sighed, staring at Jessica. "What about you?"

"I initiated the contact, sir."

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a she.

"Very well," Principal Perez said, handing us a pair of tablet computers. "Fill these out completely."

I frowned at the legalese on the screen. "What is this?"

"Just a F304A Form waiving your Federal and State sexual harassment protections."

I grinned. "Against her?"

Bobbi shook his head. "Against anybody."


End file.
